Encampment, Wyoming

The board credits Willis George Emerson with laying out the town and leaves the promoter's record unsaid. His North American Copper Company bought the Ferris-Haggarty mine in 1902 for a million dollars and put about as much into the smelter and tramway, against some five million dollars in stock sold. Mismanagement, fraudulent stock sales, falling copper prices and fires at an underinsured smelter ended it. Haggarty himself had sold out in 1899 for thirty thousand dollars, and the railroad from Saratoga reached town in August 1908, the month the tramway stopped.

What the plaque says

Encampment, Wyoming ( Grand Encampment ) Elevation 7,323 feet Gateway to the sites of Ghost Towns of the Copper Country. Once a favorite hunting ground of Prehistoric man, later "Camp le Grand" became a noted rendezvous of indians and trappers. In 1897 the townsite was laid out by Willis George Emerson and associates; in 1897 Ed Haggarty made his big strike on the Continental Divide. In 1902, during the mining boom, the longest aerial tramway in the world was built to convey ore 16 miles from the great Ferris-Haggarty mine to the smelter at Encampment. In 1908 the industry collapsed. Encampment is now a beef, timber, hunting, fishing and resort center.

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Thomas A. Edison — 12 mi